Last week the coaltion government of the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's conservative and the vice-chancellor Strache's Freedom Party (anti-immigration) collapsed as a secretly recorded videotape of a meeting in July 2017 in Ibiza was leaked to the German media. The video showed the vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and the deputy of the Freedom Party negotiate with a woman who posed to be the 'niece of a Russian oligarch' to give government contracts against favorable media coverage of Strache's party and the coalition government.

The resulting 'scandal' forced Strache to resign and saw Chancellor Kurz (who officielly had no part in the scandal) forced to stand down in a no-confidence vote. The fact that the videotape had been withheld for almost two years and then released less than a week before the European parliamentary elections is obviously not a coincidence, and 'the scandel was clearly a set-up with the design to achieve exactly what it did.

But who was behind this?

While the inclusion of a bogus 'niece of a Russian oligarch' (she's a Bosnian agricultural science student who was paid $7,000 for her role) was an obvious attempt to further smear Russia in the eyes of Western populations, the idea that the Russian government was involved is implausible given that Strache has repeatedly advocated for stronger ties with Russia. The claim by some idiot internet pundits that Strache was 'in Putin's pocket' and 'this is how democracy dies' because he was willing to take favors from a supposed Russian oligarch misses the point that most EU politicians would take favors from anyone with enough influence, and regularly do. Oh, and democracy is already dead, you dolts!

We can also discount the involvement of the Trump administration given that the Kurz-Strache coalition government was ideologically in line with Trump's advocacy for nationalist and populist parties in Europe.

One likely suspect might be the EU central powers, as best represented by outgoing high chief of Europe Jean-Claude Juncker, who has made no secret of his disdain for populists in Europe, calling them "stupid nationalists in love with their countries". But the idea that EU HQ is organized enough to carry out an operation of this complexity, which Strache himself described as a "honey trap stage-managed by intelligence agencies," is unlikely and not the way that Brussels does business, which tends more towards leveraging their significant financial influence over European governments.

The Israeli Angle

One country that has the means, motive, opportunity and past form, is Israel. While Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung - the German papers that revealed the video - have refused to comment on the tape's origins in order to protect their sources, both Strache and Kurz have suggested that a shadowy Israeli political consultant, Tal Silberstein, may have orchestrated the set-up.

Silberstein had previously worked with Austria's left-wing Social Democrats (SPÖ) in 2017 to discredit Kurz's bid for power, and while working for U.S. political "consultants" GCS (Stan GreenbergJames Carville and Bob Shrum), he consulted for Bolivia's Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in his 2002 presidential bid. At the time, Lozada was very unpopular and his opponent, Manfred Reyes Villa, was likely to win. But Silberstein had a plan. Referring to Reyes Villa he said: "We have to start negative campaigns against him. We have to make him from clean to a dirty candidate, that's our task... So I told him [another member of the campaign team], everything you do, it cannot be connected to us in any way." Silberstein was arrested in 2015 in Israel for a land fraud and political manipulation scheme in Romania that also involved Israel's second-richest man, Beny Steinmetz, who has a fraud, bribery, money-laundering and general corruption rap sheet as long as your arm.

Writing for the political magazineCicero, former diplomat and deputy head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, Rudolf Adam said that the only state that has the human and technical capacities for such an operation and a clear motive was Israel. As a rationale for why Israel would take such action, Adam said that Strache embodied a deep-seated anti-semitism that Israel seeks to work against:

"Israel has a survival interest in the EU pursuing an Israel-friendly policy. This line has already been controversial among EU members. A triumph of political parties close to the FPO could initiate a turnaround here and bring the EU as a whole into a more Israel-critical line." he suggested.

Ironically, the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), the foremost Rabbinical alliance in Europe, said that Adam's attempt to blame Israel for Strache's downfall is, in itself, "reminiscent of classic anti-Semitism". Damned if you do....

While it's likely that Israel played a central role in the secretly-recorded and leaked video tape, there is little evidence that anti-semitism in the now-ousted Austrian government was the reason for the suggested Israeli involvement in the leak. The claim that Strache is anti-semitic is based on pretty spurious evidence. In 2017 Strache committed his party to moving the Austrian embassy to Jerusalem and expressed support for Israel's right to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land. That's hardly an anti-Israel/anti-semitic stance. In addition, after their win in the 2017 Austrian elections, Strache's coalition partner, Chancellor Kurz, announced that he would impose a policy of 'zero tolerance for anti-semitism'. More to the point, it's no secret that the accusation of anti-semitism is, very often, used as a political pressure technique than anything else.

If Israel was behind the 'honey trap' and the subsequent downfall of the Austrian government coalition, then it seems more reasonable to suggest that, for some reason, Israel has a problem with the rise of right-wing nationalist/populist anti-immigrant and, to one extent or another, anti-Muslim governments in Europe. While this may seem counter intuitive - after all, Israel isn't exactly fond of ordinary Muslims either, and tends to have a rather nationalistic approach to its political and social life - Israel has a long-standing goal of encouraging anti-Muslim sentiment among its powerful 'friends' in Europe. If achieving that goal means it has to choose between aligning itself with governments that speak out against and attempt to curb [Muslim] immigration to Europe, and governments that encourage Muslim immigration to European nations so that anti-Muslim immigrant sentiment can continue to be stoked, it's possible that the latter is favored by the 'social engineers' in Israeli intelligence.

The NATO Angle

One other 'usual suspect' is that conglomeration of US intelligence, political and big business interests known as the 'deep state'. While it may appear that the US establishment has more than enough on its plate in trying to shore up its empire against the threat from China and Iran to be concerned about Austrian politics, we should remember that, while not a member, Austria is very much within the NATO 'realm', and viewed as a 'weak point' because of its proximity to Russia.

The long history of Anglo-American deep state influence in and over Europe has involved Operation GLADIO-type campaigns that propped-up, toppled or - on occasion - outright murdered political leaders in western Europe since WW2. Then as now Russian 'subversion', 'invasion' and 'encroachment' was uppermost in the minds of the Pentagon, CIA, MI6 and 'ideologically-aligned' agencies and networks within NATO.

As one of the few European countries not in NATO, Austria's 'independent streak' stems from the aftermath of WW2, when it committed itself to an agreement with the USSR to not join a military alliance. The long-term fruits of this are that Austria's relations with Russia are, by far, the best of any government in the European Union. Also, because Russia is on the rise today, this has recently translated into booming trade between both countries.

Despite the sanctions madness, over 700 Austrian companies operate in Russia, while Russian companies have investments worth $27 billion in Austria. When Kurz took office, Austria was already buying most of its natural gas from Russia, but that volume is set to increase by a whopping 33% this year alone, and it will climb higher as Austria becomes the major central European gas transit hub for both the Nordstream II and Turkstream gas pipelines.

Kurz's first visit outside the EU when he was elected was to Moscow. Putin's first foreign trip when he was re-elected last year was to Austria. Two days before the 'Ibizagate' scandal broke, Austrian president Alexander Van Der Bellen was in Sochi with Putin co-hosting the inaugural summit of the 'Sochi Dialogue Civil Society Forum', a joint initiative between both governments to "promote direct ties between the civil societies of Russia and Austria."

Needless to say, Western countries are not 'supposed' to be integrating with Russia; they're supposed to be isolating it like the plague (or at least, being seen to). But Austria - particularly since the formation of the Kurz-Strache government - consistently and openly flouts this 'unspoken rule'. When British intelligence in September last year exposed a retired Austrian colonel as having been a spy for the Russians since the 1990s, an anonymous 'NATO military intelligence officer' told BuzzFeed News:

"Austria has been a problem for everyone. The current government has deep ideological and economic links to the Putin regime and has been trying to have it both ways: Solid member of the EU plus close friend of Putin isn't going to work post-Skripal."

But Austria is making it work. It does not see membership of the EU and closer integration with Russia as mutually incompatible. And that, as the NATO spook affirmed, is a problem - specifically, an ideological problem for them.

When the Skripal Saga erupted in Europe over the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, the Kurz government, through its foreign minister Karin Kneissl (yes, the one whose wedding Putin attended), had the temerity to ask for actual evidence before joining the Russia-bashing bandwagon. When it subsequently refrained from joining the hysterical booting out of Russian diplomats, and the British government attempted to pressure Austria into line, Kurz's foreign ministry told them to take a hike.

Kneissl, an expert on the Middle East, got up before the UN General Assembly last September to tell the world - in fluent Arabic - that Syria was a war over the configuration of energy pipelines criss-crossing the region, and that it was just the latest such intrigue in a long line of them dating to WW1. Right there, we can see how that kind of honesty in foreign policy would irritate both NATO and Israel.

Six weeks before 'Ibizagate', on April 10th, the shadowy Club de Berne - an informal 'network' of European spy chiefs that operates 'behind the EU' but is not accountable to it - let it be known to the Austrian government, though a leak to Austrian newspaperDer Standard, that it had 'missed' the Christchurch maniac Brenton Tarrant's visit to their country because the Club had been, for the previous year, "withholding the sharing of certain information" with the Austrian government.

Der Standard made sure to note that "US spies are too important to shut out and are considered autonomous from President Donald Trump," before informing Austrians that German, British and Dutch intelligence had been keen to keep Austria's BVT intel agency "in the dark because it is overseen by politicians from the Freedom Party,"which cannot be trusted "because of its Kremlin ties." Between the lines, of course, they were suggesting that this 'minor bureaucratic issue' could be ironed out if Strache's FPÖ were no longer in the picture...

So Austria's Western 'partners' also had the means, motive, opportunity and past form for meddling in its democracy by knocking out a conservative-nationalist government through rank kompromat... 'because Russia' (the very thing Russia is constantly accused of doing, but for which no evidence exists, irony of ironies!).

In summary, it's possible that the orchestrated removal of the nationalist/populist pro-Russian coalition government in Austria serves the 'strategic interests' of both Western 'deep state' forces and the ubiquitous and deceptive Israeli intel types - and, as a result, one or other (or both) of these forces are likely to have been behind this particular operation. The really tragic part in this drama, however, is that, while the brain-power of 'political experts', mainstream media journalists and other assorted idiots on social media limits their understanding of this event to 'more evidence of 'Russian meddling in EU democracies', European democracy continues to be stolen from them by the very same people they expect to protect them against Russia.

HashAttack2 I took post Skripal to mean, that while some cooperation could be tolerated before Skripal, not so after, as the Skripal case "showed", in the minds of the US & UK Governments as well as NATO that Russia was the villain and for this deserved still more sanctions and isolation.

thorbiorn I don't think the governments or NATO actually believe Russia was responsible for the Skripal event

I wasn't surprised by friendly nations expelling Russian diplomats atvthevrewuedt of May only days after the event with no evidence whatsoever. What was telling was the numbers involved, from memory I think Ireland and Italy played along with policy but instead of the 10 to 20 put out as seen in many countries, only 2 or 3 were expelled.

HashAttack2 It is a good article. However, one point is missing. The CIA (the world's largest terrorist organisation) has its European base in Vienna. Together with the Mossad terror organisation, they are a formidable force of assassination, false flag acts of terrorism, kidnapping, Narco trafficking and human (girls and boys) traffickings.

A very professional analysis of the evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, and a fine inquiry into "cui bono." IMHO, in spite of your doubting the strength of their motives and whether they would go to such lengths to set up the honey trap, the Israelis are the most likely suspects. Here's why.

The former Governor of New Jersey got involved in a controversy over whether a seminar should be held at Princeton University by the Palestinian students and their sympathizers, exploring the plight of the Palestinians and the miseries they have to live with, the legality of the Israeli settlements, etc. etc.

Various Jewish organizations, since New York (aka Jewtown) is right over the Hudson River from New Jersey, raised a godawful stink about this proposal, demanding that the Governor of NJ should ban the seminar. He refused, on the grounds of academic free speech and the right to be heard.

A year or so later, it transpired that the Governor was a gay man, and had gotten his lover a job in the NJ Government, the lover demanded to be paid more that the $150,000 a year he was getting, and the Governor said it would not be politically possible to pay the lover so much, it would draw attention to the fact that they were romantically involved, etc. etc. How the SHTF and the sting came down was that the supposedly aggrieved lover went to the press and exposed the whole arrangement, it got all over the media, and the Governor was forced to resign. Both for being gay - this was in the days of Dubya Bush and Christian fundamentalist influence in Congress - and also for corruption in giving his male lover a job.

The end of the story, barely mentioned in passing by the Jewish-controlled US media, was that the lover, before he went to work for the State of New Jersey, used to work in the Israeli Consulate in New York. What he did there was never spoken about. Probably a Mossad operative. Probably not even gay. Probably a heterosexual just screwing the Governor as a honey trap. I understand he returned to Israel after he lost his job with the State of New Jersey - his cover was blown anyway and he had done the job he was tasked to do - to take revenge on the Governor for allowing the Palestinian seminar to take place.

The reason I tell this story is so that you will understand that it takes very little to offend the Talmudic Jews. You have heard the shrieks of rage and deadly offense being taken these days if a European white Christian even looks sideways on the street at a Precious Jewish Chosen Person. Well, never forget that Hitler was born in Austria, and Austria before the Anschluss in 1938 voted in referenda - twice - to join with the Third Reich, by a vote of about 97% in favor. Germany and Austria then, now, and for all eternity are under a Holy Curse of the Talmudic Rabbinate. The Muslims would call it a Fatwa, I don't know what the Rabbis would call it, and unlike the Muslims they would keep it a secret and deny such a halakha [Link] exists, but I have worked closely with Talmudic Jews for decades, and I can attest that they never forgive, and never forget. Like any criminal mafia, if they have to wait 80 years to take their revenge, or even 3,500 years, to them the revenge is sweet and satisfying.

My vote for the perpetrators of this scam are the Israelis. Oh yes, they may have used Austrian actors, and a Bosnian actress, and other white people, to cover their tracks, ("By Deception Thou Shalt Wage War,") but I for one am quite certain they were behind it all, for the reasons above.

Lemuel Gulliver They always cover their tracks with inside traitors. Cas in point is, long after the Jews (always treated well), got too big for their boots in Tsarist Russia, the Tsar took action and it gave birth to the Pale of Settlement, clipping Jewish wings from continued exploitation of Russian towns, cities and country folk. Trotsky et al and his inside traitors then took their revenge on Tsarist Russia and it was followed by an unholy reign of terror (watch Juri Lina's "In the Shadow of Hermes"), but again Russia remained an unconquerable foe ... this is just a drop from the annals of history, but as you say, the talmudic jews never forgive and their hatred of Russia will still consume them until Russia, as Cayce said, again becomes the hope of the world and the US and Russia again become the friends they once were when Russia gave her protection to the young American Republic ... protected her from the same Bolshevik ilk which in truth, punts the same ideology, but in modern days, only goes by a different name.

I am truly shocked that after you put so much work and thought into this essay, there are so few comments. Your readers are smart - does nobody understand the importance of this event? Does nobody realize that an anonymous "someone" with an agenda can destroy anyone, take down any government, wield the media like a weapon, corrupt any democracy, and rule the world in secret? Scary, that nobody cares.

Lemuel Gulliver I get the impression that most people have grown disinterested in events like this that have become so common. Democracy is a sham, there is no genuine representation, everybody is in it for themselves. Apathy and distraction have spread around the globe. Probably won't end well.

Lemuel Gulliver Its a rare piece of magnificent writing, spelling out all the facts loud and clear, but I think many who agree 100% with it, hold back their ammunition, so to speak hoarding it-- instead of exposing their take on it now and running the danger of being quietly destroyed by mossad/cia operatives -- so that when it comes to the final crunch, many of the more influential, can then come out guns blazing, in the position to defend what they hold holy.

Joe I am not sure that just because there are not more comments that there isn't interest in it from Sott readers. I enjoyed how this article connected the dots. Yet it is not a taboo like the articles about Darwinism, which gets every troll or perhaps just materialist out of the woodwork and busy on commenting.

As for Austria, the fact that the party led by Kurz a week later took the EU elections in flying colors shows to me that the population is not buying this ploy either and/or that the Kurz government were doing and saying some things that resonated with the people in Austria.

Jadem Cryptic comments are satisfying to the commenter, who thereby cloaks himself in an air of mystery - "I know a secret of great import that you don't and I dare not speak its name" - but they do not make much sense to the rest of us.

If you have something to say, please speak it plainly, in language we all understand, and not in dark mysterious asides, that are so filled with innuendo that nobody knows what you are trying to say.

There must have been "many snakes in the grass" in Austria. The coup was effortless, almost, and met no resistance as far as i am aware. Sovereignty is under attack, in all its dimensions. The "Globalist" faction is moving to immobilize "staunch brexiteer" Boris Johnson from the tory party leadership contest. I am no fan, and Frankie Boyle described him as a "bouncy castle with alzheimer's", lol. The EU are investigating Farage. Le Pen has been under attack for many months. Assange and free speech are under attack. India just rolled over and is now not buying Iranian oil, etc. Comedy is under attack, as is critical thinking, common sense and sanity. Don't worry about it... Just get a smart meter and save the world, man.

Israel always acts in its own interests. Doesn't need collaboration with the west, because Israel knows they have their support no matter what they do. The west has done such a good job of smearing Russia that even the hint of Russian involvement is enough to stop most unthinking people from asking questions. The public has been brainwashed to accept the narratives regularly fed to them and it has numbed the conscience to any critical thinking or search for evidence, truth and fairness. This is the real problem - on the whole any narrative is easily fed and digested. The Julian Assange case shows how much the narrative is swallowed and how dangerous it is not to recognize the truth of what is really going on with the effort to limit our right to free speach and free thinking. It is massive mind control on a global level to serve the few who want total power and believing they are chosen or superior in some ordained way. God made all people equal, and wants those who are better off to take care of those who aren't; not oppress them, force them into blind servitude, control and manipulate their very beliefs and stop them from speaking up, asking questions, resisting in any way.

Thank you both. I knew that there had to be some smart thinking people out there on SOTT. Everything you say is spot on. Joe's response too. The public are helpless brainwashed idiots (yes, brainwashing is real and terrifyingly effective,) and the psychopaths ruling the planet, a la Alexandr Lobaczewski, are fattening all the wooly-brained sheep up for a cosmic-sized barbecue.

If they can so easily bring down the government of Austria, one has to ask, why don't they bring down other governments, such as that of Donald Trump? Surely there is a hundred times more dirt on Trump than on Sebastian Kurz. It MUST mean Trump is serving some useful purpose for the puppeteers behind the curtain. And this means that everything is proceeding according to their plan.

All we can do is preserve our own dignity and self-respect - we cannot give those qualities to anyone else or to any society or any nation that does not hold them dear.

Lemuel Gulliver Second you all the way ... you warm the cockles of the heart with your straight talk ... and yes evilly conceived, as you say, the psychos of the planet's systematic ongoing brainwashing for over a century, was planned from the beginning. Russia fell to their hands in 1917 and the US in 1919. Difference is, after unspeakable suffering of nearly 80-90 years Russia was nearly destroyed, spiritually, morally, culturally and militarily-- when Putin came and Russia finally escaped. But tragically, America didn't, perhaps because Americans were never subjected to the horrors these fiends visited on Russia, as Americans far more worldly, had to be cozily and craftily led to their ultimate doom, built up to be torn down?

The Saker said it well some years ago, when he said, Putin was confronted with such powerful enemies in Russia, that he had to act as a thief to catch and banish the thieves and destroyers of Russia! -- and while he's achieved much -- the real battle is only starting now, and in my humble opinion, its also tied up with ever increasing and evermore disastrous Earth Changes ... time is running short for the psychos to achieve their global dominance agenda ... just my thoughts on it.

I was reading a report about Senator Black from Virginia, speaking out against walrus Bolton and that Trump needs to send him packing-- (Sputnik today, " US State Senator Black Urges Trump Not to Let Bolton Drag US Into War With Iran") and also replied to a comment, about how insidiously Americans had been brainwashed, and for that matter, global brainwashing-- had been foisted on humanity. I'm old, but it is people like you and Joe and Neil and thank God many others defending the common core values of humanity, that fill me with hope ... God bless you Sir!

Heart is All Thank you! He has blessed me, probably more than I can truly appreciate, but yet I'm grateful for my blessings. I'm also old like you, and probably won't be around too much longer, so the ones I feel sorry for are the young who are inheriting such a fucked-up world. Still, when I look at what the human race has survived in the past, it gives me hope that we won't go extinct just yet. We are barely beginning to explore our potential in the Cosmos and the Greater Universe, so it would be a shame if the experiment that is us were to fail.

The psychopaths' (Hebrews and Goyim) greatest failing and what is also their greatest weakness is that lacking emotions, (except the satisfaction of control, domination and exploitation of others,) they cannot get excited by the vision of human potential, which I dearly hope, in the end, will overcome their destructiveness and spur us to become all that we can be.

Lemuel Gulliver I think they tried to pressure Trump into putting a foot wrong, and remove him from office. They knew from the beginning that there was no evidence of collusion. The "Russiagate investigation" dragged on for 2 years, or so, and Trump didn't put his foot into impeachment territory. Still, the deep state has many hooks into him, i reckon. So, he can be useful. Also, the 2020 elections are not far off, so they will try to defeat him there.

The floating of the "obstruction" charges, i think were to gauge the reaction, and test the water. They decided against it, and consider it too risky, perhaps?

The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.